Adding Up (aka Charming Dating Advice)
by misscam
Summary: Emma isn't sure what she wants. Her father offers some advice. It may just add up. [Emma & Charming bonding. Minor Snow/Charming, Emma/whoever you want to imagine.]


Adding Up  
(aka Charming Dating Advice)  
by misscam

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: Set some point after 2x09, but not really made specific when.

II

His daughter has something on his mind, Charming knows.

He might not have had as much interaction with Emma as Snow has had, but that doesn't mean Charming hasn't been watching. He's been observing (and thus learning) since he first realised this grown woman was the baby he'd held in his arms for five minutes and almost died to see safe.

He sees. He sees how she smiles at Henry readily now and smiles at him and Snow more and more easily and knows, knows that their daughter isn't letting up all her walls but encasing all of them inside now. He sees how she bites down the fear when she has to make a parental decision with Henry, bravery becoming her. He sees how she mirrors Snow, gestures and expressions and even little noises made when stressed.

He sees himself in her too too, always leaving him with a vain, thrilling sense of possession. His daughter. His and Snow's daughter and Henry's mother, and she's started to think of herself as that too. He can see it in her expression when she looks at them and think they're not noticing, the tilt in her voice when she speaks their names and the way she no longer tenses when Snow calls her daughter.

So he can also see something is on his daughter's mind. She is slightly distracted – not acutely, so it is not something of a life-or-death, Cora-or-end-of-the-world matter – and she's avoiding certain subjects of conversation altogether. Subtly so, but he does see. (He was a shepherd, after all. He got very used to watching.)

Romance, he's thinking.

Now, like any good father, he just has to decide if he wants to close his eyes to it or not.

II

He comes home one day to find Emma sitting on the couch lost in thought, the house otherwise quiet. Henry is clearly asleep already, and Emma looks like she wishes she could be. She barely looks up when he offers her a beer from the fridge (not her first of the evening, from the looks of things), but the smile on her lips is sincere if fleeting.

"Where have you left your better half?" she asks casually, a rather sneaky way to inquire about Snow without sounding too much like a daughter wanting mom, he has to give her credit for.

"My just as good half is with Ruby," he replies. "She will be home soon."

Emma nods slowly, fingering the bottle without drinking from it. He could ask her what is bothering her, he knows, but something in him warns him away from it. For all she's mellowed, Emma still doesn't always respond too well to being pushed.

Instead, he lets the silence be comfortable. After all the madness they've been through, just having moments of this is a blessing in itself.

"How did you know?" she asks suddenly, looking surprised at her own words. "With Mary Margaret, I mean."

"I didn't at first," he says easily, knowing she isn't asking just to understand her parents better, but feeling a secret thrill that might be part of it. "She knocked me out and robbed me."

Emma makes a noise that could be half a laugh before she manages to choke it. "I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as she was when I strung her up in a net," he says, and this time Emma does laugh.

"Not love at first sight then," she concludes after a moment. "And here I thought you were a fairytale couple."

"Hey!" he says, mock affronted. "We're not half bad."

For a moment, Emma looks like she's about to make a joke, then something passes across her face and she puts a hand on her chest a little absentmindedly. "You're not."

"Emma," he says carefully, silently cursing the 28 years lost that means he can't quite tell her yet that she can come to him with anything, that he will always be here for her, that he's her father and will always love her.

"I am not sure what I want," she says honestly, looking up at him. "You and Mary Margaret have this epic true love meant to be thing going. Prince Charming and Snow White, couldn't curse you two apart and everyone knows it. You're so certain. I'm not."

"I was David Nolan too, remember," he says, and she blinks.

"I keep forgetting that," she admits, and he smiles at that, feeling pleased. "You're very different from that guy."

"I still remember him," he says softly. "He was a confused guy. Didn't know what he wanted from one moment to the next, except that he didn't want to hurt anyone."

"That didn't work out too well," she says, but without any venom, just resignation.

"Never does," he agrees. "Did teach me something very important, though. Always be honest about how you feel. If you're not sure, be honest about it. It's fine not knowing what you want yet. You make your own story, you don't have to rehash mine and Snow's."

"Good thing too, I don't want to be strung up in a net," she comments dryly, but she can see him consider her words.

"It worked on your mother," he quips back, knowing he would probably be in a lot of trouble he would have to kiss his way out of if Snow could hear him. "Emma, the important thing is when you do figure it out..."

"Yeah?"

"Make the choice and follow through on it. Don't make David Nolan's mess."

"I've been good at making Emma Swan's mess in the past," she says, and he sits absolutely still as she leans ever so slightly towards him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.

"So learn from it," he says softly, daring to snake his arm around her. She doesn't tense and he marvels at the feel of it. "I've seen what choosing to forget your pain can do."

"And what clinging to it can do," she says, and he knows she must be thinking of Regina.

"That too," he agrees, closing his eyes for a moment and thinking of a nursery never used, a land ruined and all the pain Snow has had to endure for a girl's innocent mistake. "I can't tell you exactly how."

"What?"

"You asked me how I knew with Mary Margaret. I don't know. Maybe it was when she saved my life or when she put on my mother's ring or when parting from her suddenly seemed hard. It just added up in the end."

"Like with Henry," she says, and the love in her voice makes his breath catch a little. "When I saw him in that hospital bed, when I thought I had lost him... I thought of every moment we'd had and it just added up."

"You woke him," he reminds her, seeing her relax slightly at the reminder. He knows the pain all too well. He still remembers the moment of Snow in the coffin, even if he did wake her.

"True love's kiss," she says, pulling away slightly. "I still can't believe I'm talking about that as if it's something perfectly normal and not just out of cheesy cartoons."

He chuckles, looking down at his hands. Cheesy wasn't the word Snow had used to describe the cartoon version of herself when they had watched it with Henry, but Emma had missed that particular entertainment.

"I got kissed," she says suddenly, and he looks up sharply.

"By who?"

"I'm not telling you," she says firmly. "Before I know it, you're out punching people and demanding to know their intentions."

"Their?" he echoes.

"It may have been more than one," she admits, and he has to clench and unclench his fists a few times before he trusts his voice not to bellow.

"Hence the not knowing what you want," he says very carefully.

"Nothing magical happened," she goes on, and he really is starting to wonder if having a daughter comfortable with confiding in him is such a great idea after all. "I mean, I wasn't willing to try a sleeping curse to find out which one, if either of them, was my true love, so I'm just... There's Henry too. I have to think of him first."

She shakes her head, watching her hands for a moment. Then she lifts her gaze to him again.

"I can't believe I'm telling you this."

"Makes two of us," he replies. "I'm glad you did, though. If nothing else because if you worry about my reaction, you should consider your mother's."

"I'm trying not to," she jokes, pushing herself off the couch. "Though I should probably ask her for dating advice at some point too, so she doesn't feel left out. I'm going to bed. You staying up for Mary Margaret?"

He nods, watching his daughter as she walks away. "Emma? Whoever you choose, if any of them – if you're happy, that's true enough love for me. Give it time. It may just add up."

She turns, smiling in a way that makes his heart skip a beat. "David? "You're pretty good at this, you know."

"Thank you," he says, trying to sound casual and knowing he is failing at least a little. At least he's not doing a fist-pump.

"Don't be too happy about it," she says, giving him an easy smile from the stairs. "This might just mean I'm delegating the birds and the bees talk with Henry to you."

II

When Snow finally gets home, she finds only her husband still awake, merrily writing on a list of people who's been around Emma lately (or as he calls it, "suspects"), drinking what is clearly not his first beer of the evening.

His explanation for why is not helping things either.

"You gave our daughter dating advice?" she repeats, and he looks a little hurt by the disbelief in her voice.

"Good enough for Rumpelstiltskin, good enough for Emma Swan."

"You've given _Rumpelstiltskin _dating advice?"

"He asked."

Snow shakes that particular image out of her head (or tries), not sure if she's more jealous that Emma has confided in Charming rather than her or more happy the man she loves is bonding with the daughter they both love. She doesn't have time to decide either, suddenly finding herself swept off her feet.

She instinctively puts her arms around his shoulders as he lifts her up, his hands supporting her back as she locks her legs around his waist.

"Charming!" she exclaims, not managing to get more out as he is kissing her, tugging at her bottom lip until she sighs and parts her lips and his tongue is brushing against hers. She is vaguely aware he's carrying her to their bedroom, finally easing her down on the bed and propping himself up on his hands to look down at her.

"I love you, you know," he says softly.

"I know," she agrees, drawing her nails softly across the skin on his arms. "Charming, what exactly did you tell our daughter?"

"To be happy and not be David Nolan," he says as if that explains everything, closing his eyes briefly as she leans up and kisses the side of his neck. "Snow?"

"Mmm," she says into his skin, sucking lightly on the spot just beneath his ear until she gets the moan from him she knows all too well.

"I need a refresher course in the birds and the bees."

"Huh?" she says, pulling back to see him grin wickedly at her; before she can utter another word he is kissing her again and she decides explanations, explanations can wait until tomorrow.

II

A few days later, Emma does ask her mother for dating advice too.

It turns out not to be too different, still a lot about everything adding up, being happy and making choices; just involves a few more rocks and a little bondage, is all.

FIN


End file.
